Saturday in Santa Fe

A Buddhist monk watches fireworks during the opening ceremony of the Shanghai World Expo – Guardian Eyewitness. Great photo. That would have been my preferred vantage point, also.
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This piece on the Wired iPad issue might only be of interest to designers, but I find it captivating. It’s a new medium and it is interesting to imagine what digital news will look like in ten years. Personally, I found that ads and editorials were too hard to distinguish. Sometimes I tried to scroll down, only to find out that it was an ad and not an article. Lots of scrolling to skip ads. I felt that the iPad issue is basically a paper issue with a few links and a couple of sound and video files. And, unsurprisingly, it turns out that it was designed by a paper-mag designer (((who cares that he won awards for paper-mag design – this is a different animal altogether))), using inDesign, which is an Adobe app for designing paper-mags. Fail.

I have not enjoyed the design of Wired Magazine in quite a while, especially the use of fonts, (((stopped reading it a long while ago))) and this is really no different. It may be a decent start, but I won’t buy another issue unless it improves dramatically.
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Some of BPGlobalPR’s tweets, in billboard format. New logos for BP. This is my fav, natch. Roshi Halifax suggested new name: Biggest Polluter and suggested this.
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Photos from B.B.King’s. Found here.



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Official Japanese government site explaining how to use Furoshiki:
In Focus: How to use “Furoshiki” [MOE]
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The No. 1 Habit of Highly Creative People | Zen Habits
The No. 1 Creativity Habit

In a word: solitude.

Creativity flourishes in solitude. With quiet, you can hear your thoughts, you can reach deep within yourself, you can focus.
(Via the music of sound)

Of course if you read this article from the BBC you find out that

Creativity is akin to insanity, say scientists who have been studying how the mind works.

Then you might be tempted to add the two things together and come to the conclusion that people who enjoy solitude are insane.

I shall quote a few lines from a book I am reading, Tropic of the Night by Michael Gruber (((I am reading the iBook version))):

A hallucination, that useful word. Of course. I hallucinate, we hallucinate, Berozhinski hallucinates (((not sure who that is, maybe it will be explained later in the book))): yes, but when all of us hallucinate, each of us hallucinating the same thing, then that is the hallucination we are pleased to call reality.

Love that.

We need neural diversity. What we don’t need it is pointing the finger at creatives, saying you guys have a higher percentage of thinking like a schizophrenic person. I thought NORMAL died in the Sixties. No need for it to make a come-back. No need for politicians or concerned parents to read that article and come to the idiotic conclusion that art and music should really never be taught in school… and you know they will draw that conclusion!

From the BBC article:

Creativity is uncomfortable. It is their dissatisfaction with the present that drives them on to make changes.

Creativity is a process, and that process ranges from uncomfortable to bliss. In other words, like everything else. Also:

Creative people, like those with psychotic illnesses, tend to see the world differently to most. It’s like looking at a shattered mirror. They see the world in a fractured way.

Shattered mirror? Watched too many Hitchcock movies, have we? What a bunch of horse manure!!

PS: interesting foreword in Tropic of the Night:

Although this is a work of fiction, much of it is based on stories of Africa, sorcery, and Santería told to me many years ago in Miami by J.H. (((here is a J.H.))) How much of this is true, whatever “true” means, only she can say. Thanks Joan.

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seed grenades
(Via the music of sound)

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BP really is a class act.

Parish official: BP shipped in workers for president’s visit – CNN.com
A Gulf Coast official accused BP of shipping workers into Grand Isle, Louisiana, for President Obama’s visit to the oil-stricken area Friday and sending them away once the president left the region.

Early Friday morning, “a number of buses brought in approximately 300 to 400 workers that had been recruited all week,” Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts told CNN’s “Situation Room.”

Roberts said the workers were offered $12 an hour to come out to the scene at Grand Isle and work.

But, when Obama departed, so did the workers, he said.

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Marginal Revolution: Food in Istanbul
My favorite sight has been the mother-daughter pair I saw on the Bosporous ferry. They were hugging each other on the bench and had virtually the same profile features, yet the mother carried full traditional dress and the daughter wore a mini-skirt and was otherwise dressed comparably. They loved each other dearly.

How you interpret these women is central to how you view Istanbul. One intuition is that they are quite alike, another is that they are quite different.

And the food? You can eat the traditional dishes, in simpler settings, or you can pay extra to eat them — slightly modified — in more gussied up surroundings. The key to eating well here is to go simple and to look for the best and purest versions of straightforward dishes. World class raw ingredients are at your disposal, if only you don’t let anyone ruin them.

Friday Repeat

This is a repeat from May 2009:

Another recently re-mixed LAVA track from 1995. This one was called Gothic Rock. I love the space about 40 seconds into the song.

Jon and I just listened to this piece in the back lounge of the bus and remembered that the tremolo on Eric’s guitar was created with an Eventide HD3000, one of the wonderful classic effect units… I still have it in the studio, but it hasn’t been used in years.


You can download a high quality 320kbps version here.

Thursday in Santa Fe

Rode the Mariachi Bullitt (((AKA the sexy beast))) to breakfast with Jon. It was great to eat outside on the patio. A light breeze fanned us and moved the leaves, and as always the birds were hanging around to scavenge food.
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Robert Johnson revelation tells us to put the brakes on the blues | Music | guardian.co.uk
And now, nearly 50 years after Columbia first packaged his work as King of the Delta Blues, we discover that we’ve been listening to these immortal songs at the wrong speed all along. Either the recordings were accidentally speeded up when first committed to 78, or else they were deliberately speeded up to make them sound more exciting. Whatever, the common consensus among musicologists is that we’ve been listening to Johnson at least 20% too fast. Numerous bloggers have helpfully slowed down Johnson’s best-known work and provided samples so that, for the first time, we can hear Johnson as he intended to be heard.

Twenty percent! This Morning Jon and I figured that twice the speed means an octave higher. 20% would mean a fifth of an octave or, 12 half-tone steps divided by 5 = 2.4 half-ton steps, or a whole note plus a quarter. In other words, quite a bit. Should be very interesting to this new version. I am looking forward to buy the CD!

Jon and I laughed about this:

Robert Johnson revelation tells us to put the brakes on the blues | Music | guardian.co.uk
When Kind of Blue was first released on CD it received ecstatic reviews despite the fact that Miles Davis’ trumpet was at the wrong speed on half the tracks.

Well, if only the trumpet was presented at the wrong speed I think EVERYONE would have noticed it!!! But, of course the whole band was at the wrong speed, which was harder to detect.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to hear an album as it was meant to be heard, rather than a version birthed by a studio muppet flicking the wrong switches as he lights up another jazz woodbine

Studio muppet? Really? Journalists (rolls eyes).
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I love these!!!

Architectural Model Greeting Cards by Terada Architects | Spoon & Tamago
Speaking of Kaminokousakujo, another one of their latest products are these awesome greeting cards (580 yen) created from paper figures often used in architectural modeling.

And check out this:

How to accurately communicate the intensity of your apology:

1. momentarily-held 10-degrees (“gosh, was that your toe I trod on?”)
2. briefly-held 25-degrees (“sorry, we’ve run out of tuna”)
3. 2-second, 45 degrees (“I know you’re the Best Man, but the flight is canceled”)
4. 5-second 45 degrees (“I’ve just backed over your dog, boss”)
5. 20-second 90 degrees (“our widget blinds kids”)
6. and the “dogeza” kneel on the floor (“evacuate your village, the plant is exploding”)

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Running on Empty is the title of this video on Vimeo:

Velorution comments:

Velorution
Look at these great cycle lanes, ready for use in LA.

Did you know that roads were originally paved for bicycles, not for cars?
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We need to make changes. I think that much is crystal clear. But we are not willing to get started.

There is a great German saying: Nach mir die Sintflut. This translation reads: It doesn’t matter what happens when I’ve gone , but it really says something like: After I’m gone the flood can come.

That sums up our culture well, I think. It won’t affect me. There will be enough water for me. The next generations can deal with it. And so on. Short-sighted.

If you are not angry, you haven’t paid attention.

See this comment about where to direct your outrage. Thanks marijose.

Wednesday Music

Here is the second half of the concert at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas, on 2004-10-08.

The band:
OL – guitars
Jon Gagan – fretless electric bass guitar + synthesizer
Ron Wagner – percussion
Robby Rothschild – percussion

This is the entire second half of the concert. The setlist:
Snakecharmer (The Hours Between Night + Day, The Santa Fe Sessions)
Caroussel (La Semana, Up Close)
Santa Fe (Nouveau Flamenco)
Cave in my Heart (La Semana)
Barcelona Nights (Nouveau Flamenco, The Santa Fe Sessions)
Ballad 4 Santana (Innamorare)

That version of Snakecharmer clocks in at over fifteen minutes!
You can download the 320kbps mp3 file here – the file is 135MB in size.

You might have to adjust the volume a few times. There are a couple of loud percussion peaks, but I didn’t want to compress the audio.

Wednesday in Santa Fe

Woke up a little later than usual and, after reading news for a little while (((I wish the fab iPhone app Reeder would be made into an iPad app, but I didn’t want to wait any longer and am fairly happy with NewsRack for iPad))), I rode my bike to Downtown Subscription for a coffee and the best pain au chocolat in Santa Fe. I had not ridden my fixie up to my house this year (((the Mariachi Bullitt has 8 gears))) and it was funny to observe two voices in my head while I was straining up the hill… Don’t be stupid, get off and walk the bike! and variations thereof, and You can do this, stay on the damn bike! All the while it felt like I was neither of the voices, I was just energy propelling myself up the hill. The chatter didn’t bother me, I was busy.
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Here are some merchandise designs that we looked at today. First the black hoodie. It comes with a cheat sheet of the most popular gang signs in the pocket… no, I am just kidding. I actually like this a lot. Great for biking. I’ll be wearing this a lot this year.


This is the t-shirt design for women. Magenta on gray. Understated. Logo on the side and name very small on the back.

This is the design for a shopping bag. The actual bag will probably be different, this is just to look at design and placement. I like this new version of the OL logo (((I should… I came up with it yesterday))). Reminiscent of Pac Man!!!

And then the t-shirt for men. I think it should show just the logo and not the name. More mysterious and interesting that way.

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Here are the brands to avoid, a list of the brands owned by BP. I shall avoid these brands like the plague. I am also very disappointed that apparently a number of senators are willing to let BP get away with paying for only a small amount of the cost of cleaning up the mess, leaving American tax payers to pay for the rest. If that is true, shouldn’t those senators be investigated immediately? I mean, unless you are taking money from BP, why would you do that? BP made 20 billion in 2008 and over 16 billion last year. I think they can afford to spend a couple of billion on restauration.